Work is a good thing, because it’s God’s thing.

In the Bible, the very first chapter of the first book, Genesis, tells the story of God creating and uses a framework of six workdays to describe its development. Then in Chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, we see work, work, work.

[2:1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. [2] And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
The story of creation from the Jewish scriptures, believed by Christians, is that creation was the product of

God gets right to work from the beginning of time. That’s unique. Many other creation stories in other cultures start with conflict between gods. They say we and our world are products of destruction. But the Christian story says we are products of construction.

When it’s all done, God is satisfied, and can rest. He’s said over and over as he created, it’s good. When he created humans he said it was very good. And then he rested, satisfied he’d done good work.

For the rest of the summer, we’ll be looking at work and rest, and how important they are for followers of Jesus.

And it starts here, with the simple fact that God works, and is still working to provide, care, heal and sustain life for us on earth.

God and Jesus work: in John 5:17 he responded to those who objected to him healing people on Saturday, what should have been a day of rest. He said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

God didn’t stop working forever, he is still at work, including in and through his son Jesus.

Later in John 5:36 it’s clear God the Father has given him work to do…like an assignment.

Finally, work is in paradise. If the Garden of Eden, in creation, we get a picture of heaven on earth, and we see work is meant to be there, not just added in after humans rebelled against god – it was there before the rebellion. The nature of work changed, but it was meant to be there already.

Today we’ve seen, work is meant to be a good thing…something God embraces. Not an evil virus infecting life.

Question: Why is the goodness of work not more apparent in human life? What makes this so hard to believe?

 

Acknowledgements: Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavour and Work & Rest

Ryan Sim - April 25, 2013

Thursday - Act On It - Generosity

Matthew 6:2-4 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Why does Jesus talk about rewards for giving generously? Why not just encourage altruism? He knows us. Having created us, and been one of us, he knows us and our motivations intimately. If he had commended doing good acts for purely altruistic reasons, do good just to be good, help others just for them, give to charity just for the charity, we’d very quickly have found a way to make it about us. A reputation for generosity, or a feeling of goodness..we can make these our God...the source of our ultimate worth. This is what Christians have traditionally called sin...putting something earthly in God’s place. Generosity should be a good thing, but when it becomes our Gods, becomes pride and self-conceit. These can pretend to be better rewards than God himself. It's hard to avoid...human nature. Seems whenever we give, someone will notice. Either others notice, shower us with praise. Or, Even if we hide it from others, we shower ourselves with praise. Jesus’ claim is that these are small rewards in the grand scheme of things...and we’re wasting our time if we receive them, as we can easily believe we’ve been “paid in full” And so Jesus commends something different...do it just for God. Whether you give money, time, medical help, gifts, talents, whatever. Hide it from others, hide it from ourselves, and give to others because God loves them as his own children. Give in order so they will see God loves and values them…and wont’ even notice us. Our heavenly father sees this kind of thing – his children becoming more like him – and rewards it with his attention, himself, far more rewarding than the temporary attention of any human, even ourselves. In God’s presence, we realize that anything less, like worldly praise or feeling smug, was a poor substitute. Jesus can commend this because it’s his way. We now realize how spiritually poor we are. We’ve been accepting the applause of others & ourselves instead of God, we’ve let our pride and self-conceit replace him! But all the same, from the safety of heaven, as God the creator and sustainer, came to earth. He gave up his safety and majesty in the most selfless act possible. He died for us, and gained nothing but a restored relationship with us, a relationship that asks us to follow him into our own selfless acts of service. When giving is done for God and God alone, a much greater reward awaits…God! Challenge: What practical steps can you take to be more generous to others, and to keep the focus on God instead of yourself?

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